Drug Terror 

Iqbal Ahmad
Iqbal Ahmad

Pakistan-sponsored terrorism is at an all-time low in Jammu and Kashmir, four years after the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A. The number of active militants has fallen from 250 by the end of 2019 to just over 100 by January 2023.

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 Security agencies have tried hard to achieve “zero terror” activities within the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir and busted 146 terror modules created by Pakistan in 2022. 

As a result, Pakistan’s design to create a culture of violence in the Valley endorsed by self-serving and incestuous political elite under the guise of autonomy for the last 30 years is failing. With arms and terror infiltration becoming difficult, Pakistan has now resorted to peddling drugs to degenerate the youth of Jammu and Kashmir. 

Narcotics, Pakistan’s new weapon to finance terrorism within the Valley, has been dubbed “the biggest challenge” confronting Jammu and Kashmir by Police Chief Dilbag Singh.

With arms and terror infiltration becoming difficult, Pakistan has now resorted to peddling drugs to degenerate the youth of Jammu and Kashmir.

The culture of violence implemented through constant financial and strategic support to the insurgency in the Kashmir Valley by Pakistan by training and infiltrating weapons and militants impacted society in many ways. 

Pakistan-backed terrorism destroyed the centuries-old socioeconomic and sociocultural fabric of society. The deaths, mass exodus of Pandits, and increased unemployment eroded the composite way of life and increased boredom, depression, and anxiety among the masses. 

Now, with the people of Kashmir increasingly relinquishing terrorism and a culture of violence, the drug strategy serves dual purposes for Islamabad. One, to attack the core of the social well-being, and two, to finance terrorism within the Valley.

As a consequence, the Kashmir Valley is slowly becoming a drug hub in Northern India, having more than 67,000 drug abusers, of which 90 percent are heroin addicts, using more than 33,000 syringes daily. 

Thanks to the constant infiltration of drugs by Pakistan via the Valley’s Kupwara and Baramulla districts, less-used other drugs such as brown sugar, cocaine, and marijuana are also readily available within the Valley and even in parts of Jammu. With 2.5 percent of the population using drugs, Kashmir has emerged as the country’s top-drug-affected region, ahead of Punjab, where 1.2 percent of the population is reportedly addicted to drug abuse.

 In November 2022, the state-level narcotic coordination committee meeting chaired by the Chief Sectary revealed that at least six lakh residents were affected by drug-related issues in Jammu and Kashmir. On average, INR 88,000 are spent by a drug abuser in the Valley yearly, increasing Kashmir’s crime rate.

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